A terminally ill Italian man whose legal battle to be taken off life support divided the predominantly Catholic country has died, left-wing politician Marco Pannella said today.
The circumstances of Piergiorgio Welby's death overnight were not immediately clear. Doctors and politicians who support the legalisation of euthanasia had volunteered to switch off the respirator that had kept him alive.
But Mr Welby's doctor had said that if he had removed the respirator as his patient had requested, he would then have been obliged to resuscitate the man.
Mr Welby, who would have turned 61 next week, suffered from advanced muscular dystrophy, leaving him bedridden but lucid.